Voice Tek media and Circlecue out of five startups emerged winners at the just ended Zongo Startup summit which aimed at promoting and celebrating the startup culture within the local ecosystem last weekend.
This year’s edition was under the theme: “Digital Media for Business and Job Creation in the Zongo Communities”, saw five startups from the trainees of the Digital Media Training Program of the ZongoVation Hub pitched their business ideas to a panel of judges.
It is expected that the winners will advance to the incubation and acceleration phase of the Ghana Tech Lab base Innovation Program whiles the rest of the trainees will be enrolled in an internship program in different companies in Accra.
As part of the program line-up, there was a panel discussion on how to develop the startup ecosystem of the Zongo communities in the country from Mr Fuad Mohammed, an entrepreneur and businessman, Mr Abdul Hameed Babangida, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Zongo Business Incubator and Hajia Zalia Qasim, the CEO of ZaQi clothing and a keynote address by Mr Kamal Yakubu, CEO of Trotro Tractor.
Representatives from the Office of the Vice President of Ghana Mr Tamimu Issah and Mr Ahmed Abdulai Abu commended the organizers of the event (ZongoVation Hub) and charged the participants to make good use of the social media into something innovative and profitable.
According to Mr Tamimu, startups need to pay much attention on how to communicate to their clients irrespective of how small their businesses are.
“No matter how small your business is, even if you are selling Waakye at the corner, perfumes, earrings whatever, you need to be very mindful of your communication process. Who are you communicating with, what is your message, what is your channel or medium, it is very important”, Mr Tamimu added.
The event was organized by the ZongoVation Hub in partnership with Ghana Tech Lab with supports from Mastercard Foundation, World Bank, World Bank Africa, Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation Ghana Young Africa Works.
PITCH GROUPS
LOTMAS AGENCY: This group is looking at branding and advertisement and their impact on businesses. The group wants to use the knowledge acquired from the digital media training to create branding concepts for businesses.
VOICE TEK MEDIA: It is a group that is looking at creating a platform that allows one to hire voice-over actors and voice-over artists covering as many languages as one prefers. The group wants to give priority to local languages which make it unique from other brands.
WOMEN IN TECH: They are a group of women who want to use digital media to solve the problem in education using the local language.
SKILLS HUB MEDIA: The group aims to build an online marketplace and media platforms that seek to hire skills/talents for businesses and home projects.
CIRECLECUE: The group will be a social media advertising firm to create a network of entrepreneurs to reach a large audience so they can promote their brands and inspire sales using digital media.
